Office relocation across Southeast Asia, on one project and one contact
A move that touches two countries has two landlords, two sets of building rules and one opening date. Asia Relocation puts a single project manager across all of it, with our own crews in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Moving one office is logistics. Moving a company between two countries is scheduling: a lease that expires on a fixed date, a new floor that is not finished yet, a shipment that clears customs when it clears, and staff who need somewhere to sit on Monday whatever the other three are doing.
That is where these projects fail, and it is rarely on the road. In our experience the delays come from two places: customs documentation started too late, and building access approvals requested too late. Both are administrative and both are foreseeable, so both are opened in the first week rather than the last.
Asia Relocation runs the whole thing under one project manager, with our own teams in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Surveys, volume assessment, risk mapping and a phased schedule — then the move, in the order the plan says.
What a single project covers, and where other teams take over
The list is the same in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. What changes underneath it is the paperwork, and that is the section further down.
Carried by the service
- One project manager for the whole move, running surveys, volume assessment, risk mapping and the schedule.
- Building approvals in each country, obtained by the local team that deals with those buildings every week.
- Packing, crating and inventory to one standard, so a shipment leaving one country arrives documented the way the next one expects.
- Freight and customs: sea or air chosen against the measured volume, with the documentation prepared early rather than chased.
- Reinstallation and sign-off at destination, against the same inventory that left.
Scope, phasing and exclusions are written per country in the quotation.
A different service
- Choosing the destination floor. Searching and negotiating premises is office search, in the Relocation silo.
- Offices we do not staff. Beyond the three countries, a briefed partner receives the shipment — and we say so instead of implying a network.
- Bringing the systems up. We place and cable the hardware; commissioning belongs to your IT provider.
- The people moving with the company. Their homes and schools are relocation services, on a separate file.
- Cover, and the gap between two leases. Moving insurance is quoted separately, and storage holds a floor's contents when the dates do not meet.
Any of these can be added to the same project. Say so at the survey.
Five shapes of corporate move, and what each one really is
They differ by how many calendars have to be made to agree.
Moving a regional headquarters
One country to another, usually with a board date attached. Two landlords, a customs file and a fit-out that is running late somewhere. The project plan matters more than the truck plan.
Opening a second country
Part of an office leaves, the rest stays. Splitting an inventory is harder than moving all of it: what goes, what remains, and who signs for each list, decided before packing rather than during it.
Consolidating several branches
Three sites, sometimes in two countries, becoming one floor. More furniture than the destination can hold, so the survey decides early what moves, what is stored and what is disposed of.
A move inside one country, run to the same standard
Across a city or between floors, with no border in sight. The regional method still applies: survey, inventory, access approvals, phased cutover — there is no reason a domestic move should be run more loosely.
Leaving the region entirely
Export packing and freight from here, a briefed partner receiving there, and the same coordinator instructing both. Named in the quotation, so nobody discovers the arrangement on delivery day.
From risk mapping to a signed inventory
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Surveys, in every country involved
Volume in cubic metres, equipment, archives and access, measured on site at each address by the team that will do the work there.
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Risk mapping and the schedule
Lease dates, fit-out readiness, customs lead times and building approvals laid on one timeline. Where two of them collide, we say so at this stage rather than in the week of the move.
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The paperwork, opened first
Export documentation and building permissions started immediately, because these are the two things that make a corporate move late.
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Packing to one standard, in every country
Same labelling, same inventory format, same crating rules for IT. A shipment leaving the Philippines arrives in Thailand documented the way the receiving team expects it.
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Delivery, reinstallation, sign-off
Positioned to the floor plan, checked against the inventory that left, and closed with a written snag list rather than a handshake.
Four organisations that move across borders
Four organisations that move across borders in Southeast Asia, each with one Asia Relocation project manager for the whole file.
Regional headquarters
Relocating the centre of gravity from one country to another, with a date the board has already been given and a budget approved before the survey.
Manufacturing and tech groups
Offices attached to plants or to engineering teams, where the equipment is the difficult half and downtime is measured against production, not against desks.
Diplomatic and institutional entities
Chain of custody before speed: sealed archives, named handlers, and a documented handover at every stage of the journey.
Expansion and facility teams
The people holding the project internally. They want one contact, a plan they can present upwards, and early warning when a date is not going to hold.
Three countries, three things that decide the date
Start from where the office is today: that is where the survey and the approvals happen.
In Thailand the constraint is the capital's towers: goods lifts, loading bays and the hours a building permits, with the provinces and the industrial coast as a different kind of job again. In the Philippines it is the clock: contact centres and shared service floors that never go dark move in waves, at night and over holidays, and an office can also cross water between two islands.
In Vietnam it is the building's administration — lift reservations, parking permits and strict working windows agreed with property management, whether the office is crossing a district or only a floor. Our teams there work out of the three main cities; the full Vietnamese moving service is the way in.
What expansion teams ask before the first survey
What makes a multi-country office move different?
Which country page should I be reading?
Where do these projects usually slip?
How do you keep the business running?
Can you synchronise the lease dates at both ends?
Do you cover destinations outside the region?
Who leads the project on your side?
What is included in a corporate move of this kind?
Two neighbours of an office move
A household, not a company
An employee's home crossing a border, with the survey and customs file that go with it.
Moving a home across a border →The whole moving service
Everything we run across the three countries, and which part your project needs.
Moving services in Southeast Asia →Tell us which countries the move touches
Asia Relocation surveys each address, maps the lease and customs dates against each other, and comes back with one schedule, one contact and a written figure per country.
Request an office move survey →